How A First-Year Law Student Scored A 7 On Her Statutory Interpretation Assignment

There are few things more frustrating than spending weeks researching and writing a law assignment, only to receive a mark that feels nowhere near the effort you put in.

For many law students, the problem is not that they are not working hard enough.

It is that they have never been shown, clearly and practically, how to approach the type of legal problem they are being assessed on.

A recent result from one of my students, Gracy, shows what can happen when you practice the method before the assessment arrives.

Gracy is in her first trimester of law at Central Queensland University. She recently received 17/20 for a statutory interpretation assignment.

But the most important part of her result was not the mark itself.

It was what happened before she ever saw the assignment question.

Preparing before the assessment

Gracy was extremely proactive.

In the fortnight before trimester began, we had several tutoring sessions focused on the skills she would need during the semester.

Because she was studying statutory interpretation, I had a good idea of the type of assessment she was likely to face. Statutory interpretation assignments across Australian law schools tend to test the same core skills.

So, rather than waiting for the real assignment to arrive, I gave Gracy a statutory interpretation assignment from another university.

We worked through it together over several sessions.

The aim was not to predict her assignment question.

It was to make sure that when she eventually received it, she already knew how to approach it.

Breaking legislation into its elements

We started with one of the most important statutory interpretation skills: taking a section of legislation and breaking it into its individual elements.

Before you can properly interpret a provision, you need to understand exactly what it requires.

We looked at how to identify words and phrases that are expressly defined in the legislation.

Definitions might appear near the beginning of an Act, at the beginning of a Part or Chapter, in a specific definitions provision, or in a Schedule at the end of the legislation.

It sounds simple, but students regularly lose marks by trying to interpret a word themselves when Parliament has already defined it.

Once Gracy was comfortable finding statutory definitions, we moved to the harder part.

What happens when an important word or phrase is ambiguous and the legislation does not define it?

Identifying competing interpretations for ambiguous terms

One of the most common mistakes students make in statutory interpretation is deciding too quickly what a word means.

They read the provision, think one interpretation seems obvious, and immediately start applying it to the facts.

That can mean missing a large part of the problem.

Instead, I showed Gracy how to identify the different ways an ambiguous word or phrase could reasonably be interpreted.

We then worked through the contextual approach to statutory interpretation reflected in cases such as CIC Insurance Ltd v Bankstown Football Club Ltd (1997) 187 CLR 384 and Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority (1998) 194 CLR 355.

The task is not simply to choose the dictionary definition that seems most obvious.

Students need to consider the text of the provision, its context within the legislation, and the purpose Parliament was trying to achieve.

Determine the purpose of the legislation using extrinsic materials

We then looked at how to identify the purpose of legislation.

That included working with materials such as second reading speeches, explanatory memoranda and law reform reports.

Again, the important skill is not simply finding these materials.

Students need to know what to do with them.

If an ambiguous expression could reasonably have several meanings, the purpose of the legislation can help determine which interpretation should be preferred.

I also modelled a high-distinction answer to a real statutory interpretation problem so Gracy could see what strong legal reasoning and writing actually looked like.

Practice assessment-style questions

Once trimester began, Gracy continued with weekly tutoring.

We worked through her seminar questions and completed more assessment-style statutory interpretation problems.

This exposed a problem I see constantly with first-year law students.

Gracy wanted to jump straight to the answer.

She would sometimes identify one possible meaning of an ambiguous phrase, decide it was correct, and move on.

That meant leaving relatively easy marks behind.

So we worked on a more methodical process:

1. Identify the relevant legislative provision.

2. Break the provision into its elements.

3. Find any statutory definitions.

4. Identify words or phrases capable of more than one interpretation.

5. Explain the competing interpretations. Consider if any common law tests help define ambiguous words.

6. Determine the purpose of the legislation using its text, intrinsic and extrinsic materials.

7. Decide which interpretation best gives effect to the purpose of the legislation.

8. Apply that interpretation to the facts.

   
   

The more Gracy practiced this process, the more natural it became.

Importantly, she was making her mistakes before the marks counted.

When the real assignment arrived

By the time Gracy received her actual statutory interpretation assignment, she had already attempted this type of problem twice.

This was the third time.

Instead of opening the question and wondering where to begin, she already had a process.

It took only one tutoring session for us to talk through how she should approach the assignment.

Gracy then prepared her draft.

When I reviewed it, I noticed that the same issue we had identified earlier was still appearing in places. She was not always fully explaining the different ways an ambiguous phrase could be interpreted.

That gave her something specific to improve.

She revised the assignment several times.

Each draft I reviewed became clearer.

The competing interpretations became stronger.

The reasoning became more precise.

When I read her final draft, I told her I would be surprised if she did not receive a 7.

A few weeks later this arrived in my inbox:

“Just wanted to share my recent marks! Wow! Super happy. 17/20. Thanks for all the assistance getting me ready. It’s also nice to feel prepared for an exam, even if they throw a difficult one out there.”

The part of that email I like most is not the mark.

It is this:

“It’s also nice to feel prepared for an exam, even if they throw a difficult one out there.”

That is the real goal – knowing what to do when the question is difficult.

Good legal study should not depend on predicting exactly what question will appear in an assessment.

The goal is to develop a process that still works when the question is difficult.

Gracy did not memorise an answer to one statutory interpretation problem.

She learnt how to approach statutory interpretation problems.

By the time her assignment arrived, she had already practiced the skill, made mistakes, received feedback, corrected those mistakes and repeated the process.

That is why the real assignment felt familiar.

And it is why she now feels more confident heading into her exam.

If you are studying statutory interpretation and want a clear, step-by-step method for approaching these problems, my Statutory Interpretation Study Guide takes you through the same core process I used with Gracy.

You can learn about it here:

Get a system for statutory interpretation